Well today I went to the community event at Sega America in San Francisco. We were greeted by Kieran Bridgen from CA and Julian Mehlfeld from Sega. They ran us through 2 of the 7 tutorials, namely the basic land battle and the naval battle tutorials. I wish we would have had more time to look at the siege tutorial but alas no. I hope some of the other TWCers who attended had a chance to look at it. These were basic tutorials and their scope wasn’t large enough to highlight any clear AI attributes since there were only 2-3 enemy units at a time. That said I had a blast and this made my desire to pre-order the game even greater after seeing some of the things they are implementing. If they spent as much time on the AI as everything else this should be the best TW game yet. I hope I didn’t miss anything of what I saw so here it goes…

今天我参观了位于旧金山的世嘉（美国）公司总部。CA的Kieran Bridgen和世嘉的Julian Mehlfeld接待了我们。官方演示了两段（共七段）教学关——陆战和海战。我希望会看到攻城战，但很可惜没有。只能希望别的玩家能看到了。这只是基本的教学关，每次也就2-3个敌方单位，所以很难突出AI的特点。当看到他们演示的内容后，我产生了更强烈的冲动预购这款游戏。如果他们再花点时间在AI设计上，这可能就是全战系列中最好的一作。我希望没有遗漏我所见到的，那么就让我们开始吧…

Basic Land Battle Tutorial
基本陆战指南

You start off with a single spear ashigaru unit. The advisor runs you through the usual point and click commands and then has you form a spear square to defend against a cavalry attack. The spears have two special abilities, square and shield wall. Forming the square allows you to handily beat the enemy cavalry unit and they route off the board. From there you gain command of a bow ashigaru unit and must beat back a single attacking samurai block. The bowmen have two special abilities as well, flaming arrows (deals more damage) and whistle arrows (big moral hit) which are on cool down timers. You have to get use to using them at the right moment for greatest effect. As the samurai unit rushes forward they are greeted with some flaming arrow love and eventually are so demoralized that the spear unit breaks them almost instantly. From there you gain command of a cavalry unit and are faced with two attacking bow ashigaru enemies. Send in the cavalry and you can easily break them. The cavalry do have special formation but I didn’t bother using one.

开始你将会控制一队长枪足轻。顾问将指导你一步步进行操作，点击指令组成方阵抵御一队骑兵的突击。长枪足轻有两个特殊技能——枪阵和盾墙。枪阵模式有助于巧妙抵消敌方骑兵突击，胜利之后结束控制。接下来，你将指挥一队弓箭手用来击退一队武士的封锁。弓箭手也有两个特殊技能，火箭（附加伤害）和 鸣镝（士气打击），每次使用后要过段时间才能再次使用。你必须选择最佳时机使其发挥最大威力。敌方武士在火箭猛烈的攻击下很快崩溃，余下的让长枪足轻迅速消灭。接着你会获得一队骑兵并对付2队弓箭手，派遣骑兵冲锋就能轻松解决他们了。骑兵有一种特殊阵型，但我用不着了。

Overall my impression is that the commands have remained relatively unchanged, besides the addition of a simpler shift click waypoint command that should help to manage units planning to take advantage of a flanking attack. The layout of the UI and the commands will be very familiar to TW veterans. While we were playing at 70% graphic quality I can safely say that the battlefields and unit details were simply awesome, even at that level, and should be breathtaking on ultra settings. The individual soldier graphics looked spot on.

You can see the full bow animation as the bow ashigaru unleashed volleys of death as well as seeing individual soldiers go through elaborate death animations. Also they have found a way to get the physics engine to incorporate persistent arrows. After a few volleys there are arrows sticking out of everything!

总体来说，操作上给我的印象是没有太大的变化，但是加入一个按shift键设定行军路线的指令(simpler shift click waypoint)，可以预先设定行军计划来完成侧翼攻击。用户界面和指令操作对于全战老玩家来说非常熟悉。当我们打开70%的物理特效时，画面令人惊叹，开到最大效果则更加出色。每个士兵的特效都很完美！

你可以看到从弓箭上弦到发射直到杀死对方这一系列完整的动作。他们利用物理引擎让中箭者身上的残留箭矢显得更加真实。在几轮弓箭过后，所有的一切都插满了箭！

Naval Battle Tutorial
海战指南

The tutorial starts with a single boat that you must navigate with the usual point and click commands. We are given the task to navigate around a burning enemy ship that has run afoul of some floating explosive mines…that’s right I said mines! From what Kieran said we will be able to use these mines in our battle to defend against enemy ships. That means you’ll have to pay attention to where your ships are at all times. Your next task is to navigate to a friendly ship that has been disabled out at sea. Land plays a big part in sea battles and you’ll have to navigate around these islands or run the risk of running aground. I imagine these variables will demand a bit more strategic thinking then was involved in Empire sea battles. Once arriving at your sister ship you are given command of it and must initiate repairs. This as I imagine was the case with Nap will mean that the boat will be dead in the water till repairs are completed. At this point you are given command of a 3rd larger ship and are attacked by an enemy fleet. Send in the big guy to board one of their ships and you can use the other two to pickoff his smaller vessels with volleys of bow fire. I did notice that the boarding animation seemed a bit odd but Kieran explained the difficulties with getting it to work correctly (work in progress). There is the option of using fire arrows to set the enemy ships alight but I only noticed it on the smaller craft we were given. Overall I was impressed to see that the naval combat will play out a bit differently and I feel boardings and chock points will play a larger part in our
strategies.

教程一开始的时候会给你一条小船来完成接下来的操作。我们首先被要求航行到一条碰上水雷的燃烧敌船附近…是真的我说的就是是水雷！Kieran 说我们可以用水雷来封锁敌船。这就意味着你必须时刻注意你的船。接下来要行驶到一条在海上抛锚的友方船附近。陆地在海战中占了很大比例，你必须绕着那些岛跑而且会有搁浅的风险。我想这些变化的影响更多的会体现在帝国海战上。当到达姊妹船旁是接到下一步指示：修复并指挥这条船。我原想这不是个什么大问题，但这条船在我修好它之前完全不能移动。然后你会得到第三条更大的船，这是一条被敌舰围困的大船。把这个大家伙搭上敌方一条船进行接舷战，用另外两艘船发射火箭以牵制敌方其他小船。我注意到接舷战的动画有些古怪，Kieran解释说，修复这个问题比较困难（已经在进行中了）。有一个选项可发射火箭使敌船起火，但只有我们的小船有这个功能。总体来说海战向我们展示了令人印象深刻的新要素，我想接舷战和撞击将在海战中扮演更重要的角色。

Multiplayer
联机模式

When you sign in you are given a screen with all your avatar/army options. From here you can choose a name and change the icon and colors of your uniform. These will carryover to
the appearance of your army in battle. There are 3 layers of color to choose and each uses the usual multispectral color wheel used in many other games. (ie. Similar to Dawn of War army creation) You can also equip your general with special armor if you have any and it looked like you could mix and match various armor pieces such as helmet, greaves, breastplate etc. Once these selections are sorted you can choose retainers for your general. These give bonuses such as +2 to bow accuracy, +1 to melee defense for spearmen as a few examples. There looked to be a good sized list of retainers but you can only have a max of 5, with no repeats, once you have level up some. Next is the option to customize your forces. We only had the basic units to choose from but as you progress you will unlock other unit types, once you capture their corresponding region on the multiplayer map. Six of us played in a 3x3 match. Our armies were arrayed side by side in a line with the enemy arranged equally on the otherside of the map. Staggered along the middle line were small buildings or shrines that were capture points. Gaining them gives your army some bonuses such as additions to melee or shooting abilities etc. I believe there were 5 in total that you could capture and they were fairly distributed so everyone got a chance to cap a few.
The first battle played out well for my side with the loss of only two units in my army. I sent in two units of light cavalry against a single swordman block and they were ground into the dirt with my horses flying from the field. I did get the feeling that the basic units were very rock, paper, scissors since in that same battle my remaining one unit of light cavalry ran down 4-5 units of bowmen rather handily. It seems everything has its counter and the more elite units are there to add some spice to your plans. After the battle one of my spear ashiogaru were promoted to veteran status. Kieran stated that as you level up you are allowed more veteran unit slots to use. As these units get depleted or
routed they will be unavailable until you play some battles without them so they will have time to “heal”. This opens up a clear route for advancement without creating unstoppable armies of veterans. The second game didn”t go my way so I’ll forgo the telling of it, but overall it was great fun and I wish I had more time to play.

登陆后会进入头像/部队选择界面。你可以设置名字、选择你的家徽和制服颜色。这些将战斗中从你的部队身上体现出来。每一种颜色有三个层次可以选择，而且每一种都有多光谱的色轮，这些已在其他游戏上出现过（有点象“战锤”系列的军队创建系统）。你也可以给你的将领装饰上你有的特殊护甲，也就是说你可以将护甲的不同部位，诸如：头盔、护胫、胸甲等组合搭配。选择完毕后，你就可以给你的将领选择侍从了。奖励包括+2弓箭命中率、矛兵+1近战防御加成等。有很多的侍从供你选择，不过最多只能选择五个，并且不能重复。接下来就是选择部队。开始时你只能选最基本的几种，随着你在联机地图中占领某地区后，对应的部队将解锁为可用。我们六个人玩了一个3v3地图。我们的队型将与对手面对面的在战场上展开。中线上的小建筑或者神社是可夺取的关键点，占领它们会给予近战或远程奖励。最多有5个这样的争夺点，并均匀的分配在地图上，我想每个人都有机会夺取几个。

第一场战斗我们这边只损失了两支部队就赢了。我派两队轻骑兵对付一队单手剑武士，我的骑兵在战场上飞驰而过，敌人随即倒在泥泞当中（被消灭）。我发现这些单位都是遵循“石头、剪刀、布”的相生相克原理，在同一场战斗中一队轻骑兵可以轻易碾碎4-5队弓箭兵。也就是说每种单位都有自己的优势，而高级兵种会对你的作战计划会带来更多乐趣。一场战斗结束后，我的一队长枪足轻晋升老兵级别。Kieran解释说就像人物的升级一样，你也可以升级更多的单位。这些单位也会减员或者溃败，你需要花几场对战的时间来让他们休整到满编。这样的升级方式毫无疑问的限制了高经验单位连续升级的可能。第二场我没有玩，就不介绍了，但总体来说很有趣，我希望能再玩一会儿。

Tidbits
一些有趣的细节

-Honor will be used to influence AI reactions to you. When you are attacked by an enemy army and you run down all the attackers you will get a boost in honor or if you lead from the front and lead a victorious charge you will gain honor. I’m very excited by this since all your actions in battle will directly effect the AIs reactions toward you for good or ill. Conversely sometimes mercy will be rewarded, when attacking now we can forgo the tedious battlefield cleanup from previous titles since there will be tangible incentives not too.

声望系统将被应用于AI与你的对抗上。当你被敌军攻击时，消灭你的对手，你的声望将增加。而如果你身先士卒并取得胜利后将赢得巨大的声望。这使我很兴奋，你所有的行动将直接影响AI对你的态度。而有时候原谅对手则能得到奖励，我们不必再像以前那样无聊地打扫战场了，那样反而不会得到更多的好处。

-Diplomacy will be much more dynamic and I am very excited by that prospect. With things like diplomatic hostages and such it should open up some difficult choices and some neat strategies.

外交会更加精彩，这非常值得期待。比如外交人质或者诸如此类的东西会增加外交层面选择的难度，并会产生一些绝妙的策略。

-Sea battles will lead directly into land battles when invading. When you attack by sea you will have to fight your way through the enemy fleet and destroy them, at which point you will be able to land on the beaches and take direct command of your land forces to continue the fight. I think it is a good compromise to full out sea and land battles happening al at once.

海战与陆战将同时进行。当你从海上进攻时，你必须要打败敌人的舰队，并让陆军在海岸登陆，然后继续战斗。我认为同时对AI进行海战和陆战是个很好的创意。

-Campaign map elements will be directly represented on battle map

战略地图上的要素将直接反映在战斗中。

-Confirmed that SG2TW will be fully optimized for multi-core systems such as the i5 and i7 series.

幕府2确定将对i5和i7等多核系统进行优化。

-All four seasons will be fully represented on campagin and battle map

四季的变化将完整的展现在战略和战斗地图中。

-No direct Mod tools for the campaign (due to opening up proprietary files) will be released, although Kieran did say that a unit editor will be out soon for Napoleon so I can see that as possibly being implemented for Shogun in the future.

没有针对战役的Mod工具（因为破解问题）发布，不过Kieran说未来将发布一个针对拿破仑的单位编辑器，我猜这也许对幕府也适用。

-In regards to expansions, we know the geopolitical situation isn’t necessarily favorable at the moment so I imagine Korea and China will be hard to implement if at all.

根据经验，我们知道由于政治因素，把韩国和中国加入进来将会很困难。

-The horo (ballonthingy on the back of cav) will only be on the general unit

英雄（除了骑兵之外）仅作为一个将军单位出现。